IPC (International Primary Curriculum)

Curriculum?

The International Primary Curriculum (IPC) is a comprehensive, thematic, creative curriculum for Primary schools with a clear process of learning and with specific learning goals for every subject, for international mindedness and for personal learning. Worldwide, over 1500 schools use the IPC in over 80 countries!

Why do we use it?

We adopted the IPC at SRS to give our students a more relevant and enriched educational experience. Each year group in Primary has identified four or five topics that will challenge, motivate and inspire our students throughout the year. This is a democratic process and we use topic reviews completed from the previous year as well as student reviews to further guide our topic selection. This gives the students ownership of their learning making for a more relevant, personalised experience. For example, Year 6 have studied a topic called ‘Black Gold’ which looks at the oil industry and sustainability issues. The geographical nature of the school provides us with the perfect opportunity to explore such a topic in great depth and detail. To illustrate the point further, we developed a partnership with an oil exploration company that is based in Dubai and a representative came along to school to lead an afternoon workshop. This educational approach, rooted in real life experience and issues, is replicated in every year group with almost every topic.

How does it work?

Each topic starts with an entry point – this is the hook that gets students excited about their learning. These events often include members of the community, parents and entertainment agencies as guest speakers to name a few. Students then complete the ‘knowledge harvest’ which involves the recording of key questions students want to investigate during the topic. The topic then progresses through its course and concludes with the exit point, a summing up or grand finale to celebrate the work that has been covered.

In addition to this we hold two very popular open afternoons per year for parents to come into the classrooms and see their children present their learning in an engaging way. Parents get the opportunity to see the impact of the thematic approach to education in action, when students demonstrate the interconnectedness and links between different areas of the curriculum under one overarching topic or theme.